The optical structure of the eye includes thin and fragile transparent tissues such as the cornea, the iris, the lens and the lens capsule. Common surgery procedures in ophthalmology (e.g., cataract surgery, IOL placement, cornea implantation and the like) are related to the front eye and are performed using a stereoscopic microscope. In general, the eye tissues are transparent and therefore difficult to see. These surgical procedures are complicated due to low visibility through the transparent eye tissues. During these procedures the surgeon needs to cut or avoid cutting these transparent tissues. Damage to transparent eye tissues might cause complication during the surgery, resulting long period of patient recovery, altering the outcome of the procedure and causing repeated surgeries and retirements. When the surgeon experiences difficulties in making accurate incision and procedures using the microscope, the procedure may not provide the desired results.
Prior art systems employ non-visual scanning technologies for locating the eye capsule during surgery. Reference is now made to U.S. Pat. No. 8,945,140 issued to Hubschman et al., and entitled “Surgical Procedures Using Instrument to Boundary Spacing Information Extracted from Real-Time Diagnostic Scan Data”. This publication relates to a surgical method for providing a surgeon with additional guidance concerning the distance separating a working end of an instrument and the posterior capsule of the eye during a surgical procedure. The method involves acquiring non-visual three-dimensional data (i.e., diagnostic scan data), and processing the scan data for determining the distance between an instrument and the posterior boundary of the lens tissue. Visual and/or auditory conveyance of distance information is provided to the surgeon.